Intermezzo Part Five

The following information in this article is from Anthony Everitt's Augustus from pages 196 to 200. Octavian looked upon the body for a time, then paid his respects by crowning the head with a golden diadem and placing flowers on the trunk. He was asked, "Would you like to visit the mausoleum of the Ptolemies?" To this he sneered, "I came to see a king, not a row of corpses." The Alexandrians may have warmed a bit to Octavian and his admiring curiosity-but this newfound warmth towards their conqueror may have lessened when he accidentally knocked off part of Alexander's nose!

Octavian's friend Areius may have shown him the Mouseion or Place of the Muses. This was a group of buildings on the palace grounds. They included lecture halls, laboratories, a park and a zoo. These were all richly endowed by the Ptolemies and were a center of scientific research and literary studies. The Library of Alexandria was famous over the whole known world at the time. It had about 300,000 books, or scrolls as it were and was opn to anyone who could read. Julius Caesar is wrongfully accused of burning the whole library down during his short Alexandrian war of 48-47 BC-in fact only a part of it was destroyed at that time.

Octavian's stay in Alexandria probably got many wheels turning in his head about what a capital should be, both architectually and culturally. The genius of the Ptolemies had been to show how intellectuals and artists could flower and grow with a "soft" guilding hand by the state. Octavian returned to Rome with his mind made up to create a city whose public image and monuments emanated an appropriate magnificence.

Egypt now lost the independence it had held dear (with a few intervals) for thousands of years and would not reclaim until the 20th century A.D. Octavian gave the new possession, as was proper, to the Senate and People of Rome. However, in many ways Egypt had become his private fiefdom. There was a bit of irony here, as not only was Octavian considered the "lord of the two lands" (that is upper and lower Egypt), but also king of kings-the same high-flown title that Mark Antony had accorded Cleopatra. It didn't take the Egyptians long to accept and pay homage to their pharaoh from the Alban Hills of Italy. Modern archaeologists have made a recent discovery of the Egyptian jackal-headed god, Anubis, as a Roman soldier guarding the entrance to a tomb.

There was a very good reason to give Egypt higher priority than other provinces in the empire. Egypt was the Meditteraneans major producer of wheat, it was Rome's breadbasket. This made it too important to let a senator govern the kingdom as a proconsul. Octavian made his friend, the poet Gallus its first prefect. At first, Gallus seems to have done a great job as an energetic and effective leader, but his new exalted status as a kind of lieutenant pharaoh mad him drunk with power. He also engaged in "indiscreet talk when drunk" about his boss-Octavian.

Gallus even had statues made of himself and a list of his achievments inscribed on the pyramids! This was too much and a colleague sent word to Rome about his activities. In 27 BC Gallus was dismissed. Octavian only denied him entry to his house and the right to enter the provinces of which he was the proconsul. This wasn't enough for the Senate, which exiled him and confiscated his estates. Octavian thanked the Senate for supporting him in the harsh measures he had taken against his friend. Octavian stated: "I am the only man in Rome who cannot limit his displeasure with his friends. The matter always has to be taken further." There are different accounts left to us from history about how Gallus dealt with his disgrace. One has him so humiliated by it that he committed suicide. Another story says he died while having sexual intercourse. The fate of Gallus was a warning to those who orbited the center of power, not to take anything for granted or get out of line.

Enough time had elapsed between the Battle of Actium and the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra for the Meditteranean world to deal with the final conclusion of the civil wars and now to contemplate the unchallenged ascendancy of Octavian. Honors came to him from every corner of the empire, including the right to use the title Imperator, this was the name soldiers used to acclaim victorious generals, as his permanent first name. Octavian declined other awards and honors in a calculating show of modesty.

There was one senatorial decree that gave Octavian the greatest satisfaction above all others. This was the formal closing of the gates of the very modest Temple of Janus. This temple stood in the Forum and had perhaps been used as a bridge over a stream that used to flow across the square (covered a long time now and turned into a drain). Janus was the god of gateways. This god had two faces-one always facing towards the future and the other-the past. The temple had doors on either end; closed in times of peace and open in times of war. Seeing how the Romans were a very warlike people, empire-building people-these doors were almost always open. It was a great compliment and acclamation to Octavian that these doors were shut. A great symbol of the much talked about-and much delayed arrival of peace throughout the entire empire under one supreme leader.

Octavian did not get back to Italy until 29 August 30 B.C. He was consul again, and had been regularly holding the consulship since his triumviral mandate rendered in 31 B.C. Like his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian knew that he couldn't govern alone, and he made sure Rome knew that reconciliation was very much back in fashion. In his official autobiography, Octavian claimed: "Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon."

The claim of clemency should be taken with a grain of salt. Yes-many were forgiven, but some were not. Octavian was not near as free in his let bygones be bygones attitude as his great-uncle was-perhaps remembering what had happened to him by many he trusted on the Ides of March.

Revenge was even taken on the dead. Mark Antony's name was removed from the Fasti, the state register of official events, and many other steps taken such as removing statues of him-his birthday was even made a dies nefastus, an unlucky day, on which public business could not be carried out. There was more going on here than just Octavian's wish to see all memory of Mark Antony expunged from the face of the earth.

There was a propaganda machine cranking up that meant to rewrite history. Actium, which had really been no more than a minor naval engagement with the romantic twist of the star-crossed lovers Antony and Cleopatra breaking through the blockade, was being transformed into a great battle between the hardy and upright moral Rome and the effeminate and devious East, between Good and Evil itself. The poets who associated with Octavian's childhood friend Maecenas, worked on his imaginative rewritings of history.

Horace composed a memorable and-although it was well written-the poem did not have even one accurate statement in it! Virgil, who was the greatest poet of the age, wrote the most complete verse of what all of this was about, in his great national epic of Rome's beginnings, the Aeneid. In this epic, Julius Caesar's ancestor, Aeneas, has Octavian prophetically engraved on his shield at the head of tota Italia, all Italy. The nova or comet that had shone so brightly in the night sky for a week after Julius Caesar's assassination shines above Octavian as he sets out to put the corrupt and craven East in its place:

High up on the poop [he] is leading
The Italians into battle, the Senate and People with him,
His home gods and the great gods: two flames shoot up from his helmet
In jubilant light, and his father's star dawns over its crest.

The image is a marble bust of Octavian at a very young age. I do hope to post the next segment soon. I need to think of a new series name! The "intermission" is over now-if it indeed could ever have been considered one. I am glad I had some of this saved to drafts already. I can't do this near as much as I would like but it helps enormously when I can because of my back and lousy typing. The rest of this week until Monday starts again might be a bit of a mess depending on what happens, but I don't want to say what will or won't get done- as when I do I am often wrong! Please hope and pray if you want for a positive result for me with my disability hearing on the 17th-Thursday. I may not even know the answer for another 3 to 5 months-but my case will be "decided" Thursday whatever happens. The extra time is because there are not enough staff to type up decisions made-like a whole four people for the whole of Maricopa County-maybe even the whole state-forgot which. Thanks again to Jon and anyone else who has commented here or reads this blog-I appreciate it so very much-and hope to keep going with this blog as best I can in the future!

Intermezzo Part Four

However, fate or history-are they one and the same? had something else in mind. Publius Cornelius Dolabella, a young aristocrat on Octavian's staff, and yet another member of the male sex said to be "by no means insensible to Cleopatra's charms," warned her that Octavian was about to leave Egypt and that she and her children were to be sent away within three days. For Cleopatra this signaled the end of the road. She arranged for an asp-the Egyptian cobra-to be smuggled in to her in a basket of figs. Cleopatra then dismissed all of her attendants, except for two faithful ladies-in-waiting, and closed the doors to the mausoleum.

There are different versions of what happened next but the end result was the same-she died. One version has her saying "So here it is," and removing the figs to reveal the snake, and holding out her arm to be bitten. Another has her provoking the asp to anger with a golden spindle until it jumped out of a jar and bit her. She was 39. Plutarch tells us that she was discovered "lying dead upon a golden couch dressed in her royal robes. Of her two women, Iras lay dying at her feet, while Charmion, already tottering and scarcely able to hold up her head, was adjusting the crown which encircled her mistress's brow."

Now we come to the hard part-trying to decide how much of this romantically tragic ending is true? The reason being is that propaganda and some things not considered by historians and commentators. Maybe the queen's leaving the stage was in Octavian's interest? Executing a woman was not fashionable in Rome, and Cleopatra's appearance at his triumph in Rome might not have been the glittering prize it would first seem to be.

Octavian could well have remembered how Cleopatra's half-sister, Arsinoe, had won the onlookers sympathy when led in chains in one of Julius Caesar's triumphs. Could it not have been much to Octavian's advantage to have Cleopatra kill herself? Here is one scenario: When Cleopatra didn't show any tendencies toward suicide, Dolabella, a man probably half the queen's age and far from being the type of trustworthy and loyal servant that the aforementioned Iras and Charmion were, was instructed to put a "bug" in Cleopatra's ear and leak his employer's travel plans in the hope that this would push her over the edge-and it did.

As for the exact way Cleopatra exited this life it is best to agree with Dio's judgment that "no one knows clearly in what way she perished." First of all the story of the asp in a basket of figs is problematic. The typical size of such a reptile would be eight feet long-a bit large for a basket of figs and one would assume very difficult to handle! Secondly, a single bite by an asp is not necessarily fatal, and even when it is, as much as two hours can pass before the victim of the bite perishes.

We can suppose that Octavian arranged to have Cleopatra murdered, and had his propaganda machine crank out the suicide story. The problem with this theory is that there is absolutely no evidence for it. We can only judge from the facts and aftermath of the queen's death. A second look has shown us that it might have been much to Octavian's advantage to have the queen out of the way-somehow-as she would probably not have been the centerpiece of any triumph he would hold in Rome.

Octavian certainly showed no hesitation whatsoever in have the boys Caesarion and Antyllus caught and executed. Sadly, the boys' last big celebration-their coming of age ceremony was also their death sentence, for it made them as qualified for blame as culpable adults. The younger children, the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, were spared. Some historians apparently have questions about whether the youngest-Ptolemy Philadelphus- survived the journey to Rome. After being in Octavian's triumph, they joined a large group of children being cared for by Octavian's sister-the kind and maternal Octavia.

When Cleopatra Selene had grown up, she married the scholarly King Juba of Numidia, by whom she had a son and a daughter. In all likelihood, she took her brothers with her to North Africa. History tells us nothing more about them and we can suppose that they led intentionally quiet lives-doing all they could to avoid Rome's dangerous and unfair spotlight.

Octavian was somewhat different from many Romans-he enjoyed being a tourist but didn't loot expensive and beautiful objects. He only took one item, a single agate cup, away from the palace of the Ptolemies. He visited some of the sights in Alexandria, which would have been exquisite and brilliant in white limestone and marble. The most important of the sites to Octavian especially was the tomb of Alexander the Great, which stood at the crossroads of the city's two main avenues. Alexander had died in 323 BC. His embalmed body was placed in a gold and crystal coffin and was the new city's most sacred monument. Today, not a trace of the corpse or the building that housed it, the Soma, remains, although it very well could have stood on the site of today's Mosque of the Prophet Daniel.

Octavian was now the same age-33-as Alexander when he died. He was a great devotee of the conquering Macedonian. Octavian wanted to see the mummy and honor it; so it was temporarily removed from its coffin and burial chamber and displayed to the public.

The image is just an example of some Roman coinage. I almost got all the way caught up tonight-and just couldn't quite make it to the end. I will now need some time to get some article-sized information written. If tonight turns out to be another night of insomnia, I might even be able to work a bit on it this eve/am-but I would really like to sleep for once! I may be offline tomorrow-but do hope to be back soon. Again I appreciate the wonderful and insightful comments so much from Jon and others who have commented!

Intermezzo Part Three

One of Mark Antony's bodyguards brought Octavian the dead man's bloodied sword, and it is reported that he withdrew into his tent and wept. Normally, Octavian kept his feelings under wraps-as Roman men were very much expected to do, and there is only one other report of him crying tears: when he received an account of Julius Caesar's funeral. If he had indeed wept at this point it was probably from the build-up of the stresses and tensions over the years and their sudden release. It is very unlikely (although not unheard of in history of one enemy weeping at the death of another) that Octavian wept with any empathy whatsoever toward Antony. He had never gotten along with his former brother-in-law and fellow triumvir.

Octavian had pursued with an utter single-mindedness to have this man out of his way on his climb up to ultimate power. Perhaps this whole event was invented, and simply was an illustration of Octavian and his camp's skillful use of propaganda.

Although Octavian ruled the Roman world, he had never seen a great Hellenistic megalopolis before. He was only familiar with cities like Rome and Athens that had grown unplanned and unkempt over many centuries. The type of city Octavian was used to were crowded, ugly, clamorous contrivances, devoid of charm, wide avenues and splendid vistas. Thus, Alexandria made a great impression on Octavian.

The city was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, the 25-year-old Macedonian king who conquered the Persian empire. The city was built on a narrow bar of land with the Meditteranean on one side and a shallow lake on the other.

A little way offshore lay an island, Pharos, with its celebrated lighthouse, which was three miles long and protected the lighthouse from storms. The street plan was based on a grid pattern, like a modern American city. A mile-long dike was built between the shore and the island of Pharos, thus creating two harbors, the Great harbor on the east side and the Eunostus (or Happy Return) harbor to the west. A canal from Lake Maraeotis in the south connected the city to the Nile and so to Egypt both as a center for making goods and a market. The city was a great success and in the first centurt B.C., the total population may have equalled Rome's.

Alexandria's magnificent look made it a center for culture and fashion throughout the eastern Meditteranean. Strabo described it as the "greatest emporium of the inhabited world." Now Octavian had the run of the city, and on foot he led his men through the Gate of the Sun, not far from the hippodrome outside the walls, and along one of the city's main thoroughfares, the Canopic Way. Anxious crowds had begun to gather around this audacious newcomer and conqueror. Octavian made a point of being accompanied by Aerius, an Alexandrian citizen and a well-known philosopher and rhetorician. This friendly move was probably to alleviate the fears of the people, as it was very common after a city's conquest that it would be given over to be pillaged and ransacked by the victors.

Octavian and his men made their way to the Gymnasium. This was the same place where Antony and Cleopatra probably held the ceremony of the Donations of Alexandria. The place was full of a very nervous people, and when Octavian came to the speaker's dais, the audience was so engulfed by their terror that they all fell on their faces. Octavian told them he had no intention of holding the city responsible for the conduct of its leaders. At Areius' request he granted a number of pardons. The Octavian went to the Royal Palace, which was to the north of the Canopic Way; here he would find Cleopatra.

He sent ahead an eques named Gaius Proculeius, a close friend of his whom, it so happened, Antony in his last moments had recommended to the queen. Proculeius had instructions to do whatever it took to capture her alive. The palace took up a whole fifth of the city, along with the quayside of the Great Harbor. The complex was almost completely buried under later buildings and there aren't any ruins to visit; however some of it sank into the sea after an earthquake and subsequent tidal wave in the fourth century B.C., and is now being explored. The main palace building stood on Cape Lochias, a promontory at the harbor mouth.

Somewhere near here, Cleopatra sat beyond despair in her mausoleum, awaiting Alexandria's conqueror-her conqueror. She had gathered gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory and cinnamon (a very pricey spice in that era and regarded as a present fit for royalty) in this place. She had also brought a great deal of firewood and tinder. This implied a threat to Octavian that if he didn't treat her well, she would set everything afire.

Ancient sources tell us that Octavian's debate on what to do about Cleopatra centered around these precious items in her possession at the time, but as Anthony Everitt states in his book Augustus on page 193: "...this consideration weighed heavily with him, although it cannot have been decisive: the queen can hardly have had personal possession of the kingdom's entire reserves of precious metals-and, even if she had, they would survive a fire. The loss of the jewelry and other precious items would be a pity, but it was not a matter of high importance."

Proculeius arrived at the mausoleum and gained entry by a trick. He had noticed that the upper window through which the dying Antony had been pulled through was still open. So, while someone distracted Cleopatra by engaging her in conversation through the door of the mausoleum, Proculeius climbed through the window with two servants using a ladder. He captured Cleopatra and placed her under guard. Cleopatra was allowed to preside at Mark Antony's funeral, but not before Octavian inspected the corpse. The formerly proud queen was now a broken woman-in spirit and physically. She became ill and remained a prisoner inside the mausoleum.

The long dreamed of addition of Egypt to the Roman Empire solved Octavian's financial troubles with a flourish. Over time, after the kingdom's bullion reserves were transported to Rome, the standard rate of interest instantly dropped from 12 percent to 4 percent. There was now enough money to not only settle his account with the veterans and to buy all the land they required-it was without any surprise that land values doubled-but there was enough money to invest in yet more public works, and the weary (from the civil strife and political upheavals over the last 50 to 100 years depending on where one wants to say the collapse of the Republic began) people of Rome received munificent individual money grants.

Soon after her arrest, Ocatavian paid a visit to Cleopatra. We can assume he must have known her (or at least heard much juicy gossip and seen her) from her stay in Rome as Julius Caesar's lover nearly fifteen years previously. Her appearance now must have been so hugely different that she must have been almost unrecognizable from the proud, luxurious-and the much despised by most Romans-queen who had visited Julius Caesar then. Plutarch tells us: "She had abandoned her luxurious style of living, and was lying on a pallet bed dressed only in a tunic, but, as he entered, she sprang up and threw herself at his feet. Her hair was unkempt and her expression wild, while her eyes were shrunken and her voice trembled uncontrollably."

Octavian asked her to lie down again and sat beside her. Cleopatra-rather pathetically we can imagine (but what would we do ourselves if we were in her shoes-or tunic;-) so to speak?) then tried to justify her part in the war, saying that she had been forced to act as she did and had been in fear of Antony. Octavian must have been happy with her pleading tone, for it suggested she didn't intend to kill herself. Then he undertook to destroy excuses point by point, and she begged for pity as if desperate to save her life. The ancient commentators claim that he did indeed want her to live because she would make a praiseworthy display in the triumph he intended to hold in Rome. There is some argument later over this as we shall see.

I tried to type as long as I could taking breaks and such for my back standing up down, up down-and I just gotta quit for the eve! My back is too sore and my hands are tired. And I still want to visit the blogs my friends have-at least as many as I can. I am still ahead of the game, so to speak and have more written out ready to go. Tonight I was going to attempt just to do it all-that I had done anyway to close the "Antony/Cleopatra Chapter" -although as with Hadrian/Antinous at MFM I am sad in a way to see them go-it has been a very long time since I had originally intended to be through not only this part of Roman history-but through all of the rule of Augustus too. I would still like to go fairly slow with the rest of Augustus-using Anthony Everitt's wonderful book as my guide-although not near as slow as I have been going-lately it has been pretty much page by page-rarely even skipping a paragraphs worth for every three pages. I really need to learn to be better at condensing information!

There are so many other areas of history-even Roman history-and questions of history (btw the reason I like using Anthony Everitt's Augustus -well one of the many-is that I feel he answers a lot of questions I have had about history when I started this blog-just in this post there were some economic questions answered-and I think in past articles using Augustus there have been many other questions answered-at least for the timeframe and people we are talking about-and I am on page 197 of a 327 page book-but like I say-I need to condense better!) I would even like to talk about "What If?" questions about history in this blog-and have two "What If?" books that talk about these alternate routes history could have taken.

The image is lame for what I was looking for-although still part of the story. It is a representation of Cleopatra VII (our Cleopatra) and her son by Julius Caesar-Caesarion. We will find out soon what happens to the children involved here also. I just checked out wikipedia-and they seem to have questions about the 2 youngest males that Everitt's book doesn't-so that might be interesting to think about. I was looking for a model-painting-heck-any type of likeness of Alexandria in the first century B.C. I will keep searching and put it in this post or a future one. I do hope to post again here in a matter of days. Thanks again Jon and anyone else who has commented in the past for your fantastic and intelligent comments! I really appreciate getting comments on this blog-it gives me that much more enjoyment for doing a blog about a subject I love and am always learning new viewpoints etcetera about. All the best to anyone stopping by!

Intermezzo Part Two

Today's installment will determine if I can type with an angry cat after me! My cat has the run of the place-my heart-my home -everything-I just can't type with her in my lap-so she isn't very happy to be set down like just now!

Cleopatra still had plenty of money and her people were loyal to her. An army and a fleet were put together. To help the mood in Alexandria, a great ceremony-almost as magnificent as the Donations of Alexandria-was held, at which the sixteen-year-old King of Kings, Ptolemy XV Caesar (aka Caesarion), and Antony's son by Fulvia, the fourteen-year-old Antyllus, officially came of age.

Octavian received a succession of envoys from Alexandria. He listened to their proposals, but conceded nothing. Octavian didn't make his own stand clear, but it was obvious that he wanted to win the great and wonderfully wealthy prize of Egypt. Egypt had attracted the covetous gaze of powerful Romans for more than a century. Octavian wanted to win Egypt for himself, not just for the greater glory of Rome.

Octavian planned to use another pincer movement for the invasion. Four Antonian legions that had switched loyalties would invade from Cyrenaica-the land directly to the west of Egypt. In a show of favor, Octavian appointed the command of these men to the 30-year-old Gaius Cornelius Gallus, although he was only an eques and previously best known as a fine lyric poet. For once, the indispensable Agrippa was left back in Rome. This was because the Egyptian campaign was unlikely to cause problems that would require his strategic services. Octavian marched through Syria at the head of a large army towards the Egyptian frontier. Mark Antony was finally able to get out of his funk for a bit because he thought he could win his legions back if he went to Paretonium where Gallus had installed himself.

But poor Antony-his attempts to win back his legionaires and take the town failed. His ships were trapped in the harbor and burned or sunk. The remainder of Antony and Cleopatra's forces were stationed at Pelesium, a port on the easternmost edge of the Nile delta. It straddled the coastal route that edged the Sinai desert, and being the only way of entry by land into Egypt from the east, was strategically important.

Pharaohs throughout the millenia had always made sure it was well protected by a strong garrison. Pelesium fell with minimal resistance. It could have been quickly stormed without being able to put up much of a fight-or more intriguingly surrendered by Cleopatra. If this were the case, she was trying to break her ties to Mark Antony. Cleopatra's first loyalty had always been to her kingdom and maintaining her power-no matter what bonds were said to be forged in the 'societies' or 'orders' she and Antony created. This scenario and other accounts of her actions during this time could have been taken straight from Octavian's propaganda machine, which proclaimed the queen's eastern deviousness and Antony's embarrassing role as her dupe.

Octavian also seems to have encountered little or no defiance at Alexandria. He passed the upscale suburb of Canopus and set up a camp near the hippodrome, just outside the city walls. When Antony got news that Pelesium had fallen, he quickly made his way back to Alexandria and, on the outskirts of the city, took on an advance guard of enemy cavalry and wiped them out. Antony was ecstatic by this victory and returned to the palace and embraced Cleopatra while still in full armor. After that, he introduced her to a soldier who had displayed great bravery during the battle. As a reward, the queen gave him a golden helmet and breastplate. The soldier took them, and that night promptly deserted to Octavian.

Antony challenged his onetime fellow triumvir to single combat with hopeless bravado. Antony couldn't possibly have been anticipating an agreement and Octavian responded derisively: "There are many different ways by which Antony can die." On 31 July, Antony decided to launch an all-out attack by both land and sea the next day. At dinner that night he ate and drank heartily and told the people around him that he didn't expect to survive the battle. Supposedly this is what transpired later that evening: "about the hour of midnight, when all was hushed and a mood of dejection and fear of its impending fate brooded over the whole city, suddenly a marvellous sound of music was heard...as if a troop of revellers were leaving the city, shouting and singing as they went...Those who tried to discover a meaning for the prodigy concluded that the god Dionysus, with whom Antony claimed kinship and whom he sought above all to imitate was now abandoning him."

Indeed, gods in those days were often imagined to leave besieged cities before they fell, Troy, Athens and Jerusalem being some examples. However, if this story has a basis in fact, the Alexandrians could have been hearing Octavian, backed up by a soldiers' chorus, performing an evocatio, in this ceremony, a Roman general would call on the gods of an enemy city to change sides and go over to Rome. On 1 August, as dawn broke, Antony sent his fleet eastward to meet Octavian's ships, and he positioned his land forces on rising ground between the city walls and the hippodrome.

What happened next was a fiasco of mind-boggling proportions. It would have been a comedy for everyone except Antony and Cleopatra and those close to them. The ships raised their oars and surrendered without a fight; the fleets immediately combined and set a new course for Alexandria. The cavalry deserted and the foot soldiers made good on their "name" and used their feet to run away! Antony went into a rage when he got back inside the walls of Alexandria. He is reported to have shouted out that Cleopatra had indeed betrayed him (as some suggested earlier-I will talk more about this later-something just came to me involving this) to the enemies that he was fighting on her behalf. Terrified, she had a message sent that she was dead.

Now there was just one thing to do-go honorably the Roman way. Antony asked his body servant to run him through, but was failed again by "his" staff as the man turned on his own sword and committed suicide himself! Antony then stabbed himself in the stomach and lay on the bed. However, not only did the wound fail to kill him but soon stopped bleeding. He was still in pain and begged bystanders to put him out of his misery, but they too ran away from him.

Cleopatra heard what had happened and sent word for Antony to be brought to her. She was hiding in a large mausoleum she had commissioned, which stood-still only part finished in the palace grounds near a Temple of Isis-the goddess that Cleopatra claimed kinship with. Cleopatra was scared of any surprises and refused to unseal the doors, and she and two women servants painstakingly pulled the dying man with ropes up to a high window. Plutarch writes: "clinging with both hands to the rope and with the muscles of her face distorted by the strain." Cleopatra beat and scratched her breasts in the traditional manner of a grieving widow, and smeared her face with the blood from Antony's wound. Antony tried to calm her, and true to his reputation to the end called for and drank a cup of wine before dying.

My ever so brilliant deduction (joke:-) I just had-and maybe had the first glimmerings for several days ago when I wrote this-is this: By taking the dying Antony into her hiding place at the mausoleum -and it seems using quite a bit of stress to do it-haven't we exonerated-just maybe-the idea that Cleopatra had already turned her back on him and was even cooperating with the enemy? Or is it me-whose deductions are foolish? She may indeed have known how hopeless their cause was -even long before this as she was a very intelligent, learned woman. But as we shall see later (hopefully within a matter of days-I am trying to keep on top of this) she seemed to want to save her life later-as maybe her courage had left her by then. But with that in mind why do this with Antony now? Why not leave him out to die on his own? She had to have known that this would be used against her by Octavian I would think anyway.

I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this or anything else here on this blog. Thanks again so very much to Jon and others who have commented here and anyone reading or following this blog-I really appreciate hearing your thoughts and ideas! I hope to have the next part here soon and already have more written down, for some reason I have found it has helped me with this blog to stay several steps ahead. When I get everything I have posted it seems like such a large climb up the hill to get more done. I hope no one feels "gypped" no pun intended-by me doing it this way-especially as we are into such a fascinating timeframe-like I say I do intend to go as fast as I can barring problems with this blog for awhile. The image is a painting of Cleopatra by John William Waterhouse. The source used for this article was once again Anthony Everitt's excellent book Augustus, pages 189 to 191.

Intermezzo Part One

At this point many more soldiers were active than needed-or could be afforded. Octavian sent Italian veterans older than a certain age back to Italy for their formal discharge, but gave these men no land or money, because at the time Octavian had none to give! Agrippa was sent to deal with these men who had become resentful-and rightfully so. This was not the only sign that Octavian's regime was unpopular.

Maecenas discovered a plot to assassinate Octavian upon his return to Italy. This plot had been clumsily hatched by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, son of the former deposed triumvir and a nephew of Marcus Brutus. This young man was put to death. Dio writes that Antony and Cleopatra planned to "actually kill [Octavian] by treachery." We can wonder if they were ever in touch with the younger Lepidus? Here we can see another aspect of Octavian's personality that helped him enormously in his rule over the Roman empire-and it's a quality that some other ancient and modern dictators lack or lacked completely. Octavian was more than happy to delegate powers to Agrippa and Maecenas. Of course these were two of the men who had been with him since his childhood and he had no reason not to trust them completely-so Octavian was certainly no fool in who he put his faith in. Octavian allowed both men to read his communiques to the Senate, and correct them if they saw a need for it. He had duplicates made of his seal ring-the image of a sphinx-so that they could seal up his letters again.

The Donations of Alexandria were immeditately canceled. Octavian did depose many minor royal figures-but Octavian confirmed on their thrones the major client kings-Amyntas of Galatia, who had defected to him before Actium; Polemo of Pontus, who had stayed put in his kingdom; and Archelaus of Cappodocia. These men were able rulers, and they knew very well that it was their best interest to stay loyal to whoever ruled Rome. In the case of these men and others, Mark Antony had been a very good judge of character and Octavian didn't see any reason to change the arrangements he had made in this part of the world. For Antony's sake it is only too bad-and a bit strange-that he wasn't a better judge of Octavian's character-or could at least deciphered his ultimate goal!

As to the directly ruled provinces of the empire, reliable and safe colleagues were appointed eventually as proconsuls. For example, Cicero's son Marcus, although drunk quite often, but reliable was given Syria. For the time being, the newly minted province of Armenia was lost. The deposed king of that nation had taken advantage of the distraction of Actium to reclaim his realm. Octavian had no choice but to ignore this slap in the face to Roman power and interests. The decision about what was to be done about the eastern frontier-the Armenians, the Medes, and east of them the untamed Parthians, who still held the lost standards of Crassus from 53 BC-would have to be put on the back-burner for now. Octavian was simply too busy.

Agrippa wrote a disturbing letter to Octavian in January of 30 BC. Octavian was still on Samos when he received it. The letter said that Agrippa wasn't able to handle the Italian veterans who had become openly mutinous and that his prescence was needed immediately. This was a terrible time of year to take a long sea journey because of dangerous storms, but it had to be done. When Octavian disembarked at Brundisium, something happened that let him know that people realized Rome was being ruled be one unchallenged man now. He was met by the entire Senate (except for a couple of praetors and the tribunes), many equites, and great numbers of regular citizens. Octavian received an enthusiastic welcome. This was a singular honor as it was normal for senators to meet a returning ruler outside the gates of Rome, but to get to Brundisium they had travelled 300 miles to do so!

The angry veterans met Octavian at Brundisium too, and he quickly met their demands, although he didn't have enough "liquid" cash to pay them all on the spot. He had to issue promises postdated to the expected fall of Alexandria. This satisified the veterans-for now. But Octavian knew he could not trifle with these promises, and after a month back on Italian soil Octavain returned to Samos, where he made plans for the long-awaited invasion of Egypt.

Unfortunately for Antony and Cleopatra the "theory" of political power ran up against "realpolitik." In theory they should haven't had reason to be unhappy, because they still ruled half the Roman empire. The complete financial and human wealth and reserves should have been theirs to use as they saw fit. However, since Actium, important people in the eastern provinces were unwilling to supply more aid and soldiers to support what they considered a lost cause.

Upon Antony's eventual arrival in Alexandria from Paratonium, he abandoned the palace and his friends. In his emotional despair he chose to live by himself in a quayside house that sat beside Alexandria's great lighthouse, more than 300 feet high, on the island of Pharos. Mark Antony turned 54 on 14 January 30 BC. Cleopatra got him out of his self-pity and misery by throwing a spectacular birthday bash for him. Plutarch wrote: "Cleopatra and Antony now dissolved their celebrated Society of Inimitable Livers and instituted another, which was at least its equal in elegance, luxury and extravagance, and which they called the Order of the Inseperable in Death. Their friends joined it on the understanding that they would end their lives together, and they set themselves to charm away the days with a succession of exquisite supper parties."

The couple knew Octavian would arrive with the coming of spring and march against them. They had no realistic opportunity to escape to some other part of the world, although they had briefly considered Spain and Cleopatra had tried to organize an expedition to Arabia but failed. The lovers were cornered. They had but two options left: negotiate and if that failed, to prepare for a final and futile last stand.

I still have some information written-probably two or three posts worth. I think 3 new posts -although the two below had been done mostly and saved to drafts is enough for now-and I still have one more post at my writing blog to do -that is if the power doesn't go out! The lights began to flicker a bit ago and it is actually stormy and rainy here in the desert tonight, which is weather I love-I would just love it more if I felt better. There is actually a question about the image I used-but I will post this bit first-just in case the power fails-and then if it doesn't come back with a link and my question about it. Thanks again so very much to anyone commenting or reading this blog!

OK-I hope this link works-if it doesn't I won't mess with it anymore. I think I answered my own question anyway. I was trying to see if any images of frescoes or anything had been unearthed at Augutus' house on the Palatine Hill. He was supposed to have had an appreciation for how life was kind of a farce -not to be taken too seriously. There was supposed to have been a frescoe of the tragic and comic masks actors wore in his bedroom. That is what I started to look for image-wise. I found the above image instead and thought it was from his place, but apparently it is from a cave-the Lupercal-very near to where his home was on the Palatine Hill and recently unearthed. So the image is from the cave and not Augustus' place. If the link works scroll down a bit to a November 21, 2007 entry and it tells about it. Again I couldn't be doing this series without Anthony Everitt's excellent book Augustus. I hope to post again very soon. Here is the link. http://chem11.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=UFO&action=print&thread=398

Battle Of Actium Part Two

Also interesting in the story of this fascinating event in Roman history is the fact that Octavian and Agrippa could not know for sure they had won. Octavian probably suspected he was the victor, but he couldn't be 100 percent certain. The night was starting to come and it wasn't always easy to tell and enemy ship from a friendly one at the best of times. Octavian would have received reports from a battle front that was probably over four miles long, but he could not rely on the accuracy of the reports.

Octavian's position would have been somewhere toward the center of his line, and he would have seen Cleopatra's getaway under full sail, but he wouldn't have any knowledge or reason, necessarily, to think that Mark Antony had fled the scene with her. One thing Octavian did see was a retreat by some enemy ships. He had learned, during the war with Sextus Pompeius that admirals often felt they had to spend a sleepless night at sea after a battle.

He and Agrippa knew they had probably achieved victory in corraling what remained of Antony's fleet, and they wanted to avoid the risk of it escaping under the cloak of night or at first light. To prevent this, as uncomfortable (especially as they were no doubt exhausted-just from the adrenaline coursing through their veins during the day and finally stopping would have left them drained and weary) and dangerous as it was, they kept their ships at sea throughout the night.

With the arrival of morning, Octavian now back on land could assess the battle. He saw that he had definitely achieved a partial victory at least. Between 30 and 40 enemy galleys had been sunk and about 5,000 of Antony's troops killed. The commanders of the 130 to 140 residual ships considered the hopelessness of their cause and surrendered. However, the large army of 50,000 men was still together under the leadership of Publius Canidius Crassus. Crassus had begun to lead these men towards the Pindos mountains and the relative safety of Macedonia. If this army could not be dealt with in some way, the battle of Actium would just be one engagement of the war and not its decisive encounter, so Octavian marched after Antony's legions.

As events conspired, Octavian had no need to worry. These men had no idea that their commander had abandoned them, until the day after the battle. For a time, they were certain Antony would appear from somewhere. However, the days and nights passed with no sight or word of him and these soldiers' confidence was lost. Instead they chose to deal with the victor, Octavian. After a week of difficult negotiations in which the soldiers demanded to be treated as if they had been on the winning side, Octavian caved in and agreed to keep the legions intact instead of disbanding them and more importantly he promised to give them the same rewards as the victorious army.

Canidius and other senior officers didn't want any involvement in this deal, and one night they left camp and made they sad and lonely way to Mark Antony. Mark Antony and Cleopatra's activities and location took awhile after Actium to get to Octavian. Antony had caught up to Cleopatra and they went to the beautiful port of Paraetonium, located just inside Egypt's western frontier and 180 miles from Alexandria.

Antony sent Cleopatra ahead to Alexandria with her ships bedecked in the garlands of victory. Before the truth could become known she had any potential rabblerousers killed. Antony had hoped to communicate with four of his legions in Cyrene, but they had already went over to Octavian and refused to meet him. Now Mark Antony fell into a dark and deep depression. Octavian sent a message of victory to Rome. Here in the aftermath of his victory at Actium another aspect of his personality came out that was so typical of the way he had methodically rose to power. Patient as ever, he was in no hurry to deal with the defeated queen and general. Octavian decided to spend the oncoming winter on the island of Samos.

The image is of a marble bust of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Thanks again for your fantastic and insightful comments! I always learn to look at things in a new light or perhaps change my whole perspective with the comments some people have left so I very much appreciate them! This post and the previous were saved to drafts and just required a slight bit of work to post. I hope to do one more for the night that will need to be typed up from the start. All the best to anyone stopping by!

PS-the next series name "Intermezzo" is not one I am sure I like -or that even properly describes this time frame -I was trying to think of a new post series name -short - and remembered a book I had read a long time ago about Soviet history-and it had a chapter called "An Itermezzo With Konstantin Chernenko" so that is where the name came from-I don't know Italian or any other languages but wish I did-especially French, Spanish and Italian.

Battle Of Actium Part One

Agrippa waited for Antony to realize he was not going to move, and start on his own again. This, eventually Antony did, putting himself with the squadron on the right. The command of Antony's left flank was given to the competent and able Sosius. Here the "fog of war" takes over and history can give only the widest and most nebulous account of what happened next.

Plutarch tells us: "The fighting took on much of the character of a land battle, or to be more exact, of an attack on a fortified town. Three or four of Octavian's ships clustered around each one of Antony's and the fighting was carried on with wicker shields, spears, poles, and flaming missiles, while Antony's soldiers also shot with catapults from wooden towers."

We can imagine that with his greater number of warships, that Agrippa could move his fleet into two lines and most likely did so, while Antony would have only been able to have one line of ships. Early into the battle, Agrippa began to test Antony's northern flank. Antony's ships responded by moving northward, maybe swinging around from a north/south to a west/east axis. This would have had the effect of weakening both parties center lines.

After a couple of hours into the fight, Agrippa must have started to feel more confident as there hadn't been an enemy line he couldn't break through. Antony's ships were fighting as best they could, they were simply outnumbered. In the early afternoon, the wind changed direction, as it did every day allowing a stunning event to occur.

Cleopatra's squadron, which hadn't been engaging in any of the fighting suddenly sailed through the weakened center, where there was room enough to maneuever between groups of battling vessels. Her ship was easy to spot because it had a royal purple sail. With the change in wind direction, once Cleopatra's squadron had bypassed Leucas, it could speed south with a breeze billowing in their sails and make their getaway outrunning Octavian's sailless ships with ease. Antony immediately took some ships from his position in the north. His own flagship was too involved in fighting, so he transferred to another vessel and took after Cleopatra with a small armada.

Here is a fascinating small digression about where the ancient commentators were wrong about this event. They incorrectly imagined that Cleopatra lost her courage and fled out of cowardice, and that Mark Antony followed her because he was enraptured with passion and love for Cleopatra. Looking back over 2,000 years we can tell this was very much not the situation. Here is why: 1) The stowing of the sails for use later on to escape. 2) The order of battle (with Cleopatra's ships kept towards the rear with no intention of fighting. 3) The timing of the escape to catch the afternoon wind change.

These facts-not theories or suppositions tell us that the couple was proceeding according to a well thought-out and executed plan. The traitor Dellius had made Agrippa aware that a general breakout was planned-but he hadn't known the specifics, so Agrippa was caught entirely unawares that Cleopatra would try to make her escape while the rest of Antony's fleet tried to keep him occupied. Agrippa had played right into their plan by sailing north to outflank Antony's right and this thinning his center-allowing for Cleopatra's escape.

We can imagine that Antony hoped that other ships of his would also be able to escape, but these vessels were completely engaged trying to fight off Octavian's larger fleet. The wind grew stronger after another hour and some of Antony's ships began to surrender. They had nothing to be ashamed of. The fight had been one of unequal strength from the beginning. Other ships of his withdrew into the Actium strait.

The image is an artist's rendering of the famous Alexandria lighthouse of the island of Pharos. I hope to be back soon with another post. All the best to anyone stopping by!

War Drums Part Eight

The defection of Amyntas was like a snowball rolling downhill, everywhere he looked Antony was losing client kings, Roman senators and others. The most stinging betrayal was the of Domitius Ahenobarbus. He was suffering from a fever that most likely had its source from whatever illness it was that had swept theough Actium earlier in the summer. Ahenobarbus sailed on a small boat to the bay of Comaros. Plutarch tells us: "Antony, although he was deeply grieved by his friend's desertion, sent not only his baggage but all his friends and servants after him, whereupon Domitius died almost immediately, as if he longed to repent as soon as his treachery and disloyalty became public knowledge."

This charitable side of Mark Antony was short-lived, however. He was a man who could be almost as cruel as Octavian when he became agitated. More than a few important defectors were executed in some harsh and imaginative ways after the defection of Ahenobarbus. One senator met his end by being tied to horses and pulled apart. Antony did very much understand, however, that some course of action must be decided on and made at haste. Things could not be allowed to fall apart much longer, so he withdrew his troops back to Actium and called a council of war.

One day Octavian noticed smoke coming from the area where Antony's fleet was based. He knew what was going on: Antony did not have enough oarsmen to man his whole fleet, so he was burning extra ships so they didn't come into his possession. From this it was easy to conclude that the final conflict was coming up fast. The man who had advised Cleopatra about the best method to attract Antony-Dellius-who was one of the defectors from Antony's camp-gave a full report to Octavian about Antony's intentions. He told Octavian that Antony was planning to try to break the blockade at sea.

This was the kind of decision an intelligent man in the matters of war would make under the circumstances. It would have been a very arduous task taking a demoralized army through the steep passes of the Pindos mountains, whereas it was reasonable to assume that a good portion of the fleet would escape manned with Antony's best legionaires. They could then meet up with the 11 or 12 legions in Egypt and Cyrenaica, and try to fight another day-at least that was the plan. The way Octavian's or more precisely Agrippa's response would be framed was the question now. In a very large sense, whatever type of battle was to come, for Octavian's camp-and many onlookers-this deluge of high level defections from Antony recently-the issue of who had won this conflict had already been decided.

To many important people, whether Antony and Cleopatra could break the blockade and escape mattered very little. If the pair could be caught and executed quickly it would simply abbreviate the coming war a great deal. Octavian and Agrippa had decided that if Antony tried to engage at or close to the mouth of the Actium Strait, they would hold back. This was for the obvious reason that they would lose the advantage of greater numbers if they fought in confined waters. Octavian and Agrippa did agree that they would not let Antony's fleet run through the blockade without a fight. If Antony made a clean break it would give him the initiative and also have a detrimental impact on opinion among the military and in Italy. But if Octavian's side waited on open seas, at some point Antony would be forced to emerge and fight on waters of their own choice.

If it happened that way they would try to outflank him in the north (the island that Agrippa had taken over-Leucas-would prevent that maneuver towards the south). Octavian's side would then encircle Antony's smaller fleet, or force him to lengthen his line of ships, which would make it easier for their ships to surround single ships and eliminate them one at a time. Due to the loss of manpower on Antony's side, the balance of naval force was in Octavian's favor. When Antony had first arrived at Ephesus, he had around 500 ships. Now he only had enough men to use 230-possibly less.

Octavian had about 400 ships available. Antony's ships were larger than Octavian's and had more oarsmen so at least this factor was in Antony's favor as they were just as maneuverable as Octavian's vessels. Stormy weather had forced Antony to delay his plans for four days-from 29 August to 2 September. The morning of 2 September was clear and sunny and the fleets headed out to confront each other. Octavian-definitely knowing who was best for the job ahead-smartly gave tactical command to Agrippa. Agrippa put about forty thousand men on the ships (approximately 90 per galley), and deployed them about one mile off the headlands Parginosuela and Scylla, marked the entry into the Actium narrows. With his fleet "parked" in this area, Agrippa waited to see what Antony would do. Mark Antony divided his fleet into four squadrons. On his galleys were about 20,000 legionaires and some archers.

One of the squadrons was Cleopatra's with sixty ships in all. Cleopatra herself was on her flaghip, the Antonias which carried enormous amounts of gold, silver coins, ingots and other items of great worth. Not only was the safety of the queen important, but it was absolutely essential that her war chest didn't fall into Octavian's hands or to the bottom of the sea. 50,000 men in Antony's army remained under the command of Publius Canidus Crassus, who was a long-time ally of Antony's. He had campaigned with great success in Armenia. If the fleet made its escape, he was to march to Macedonia, if possible, and then east.

Before leaving, Antony gave his ships' captains an odd order that may have demoralized them further if they could see how little sense it made in one context and how much in another context. Antony told them to take their sails with them so that not a single enemy ship escaped capture. In this era, sails were seldom if ever used in battle. They took up too much room when stowed and curtailed maneuverability when used. These men were probably wise enough to see through Antony's proclaimed reason and that he wanted the sails stored because he anticipated defeat and flight.

The defector, Dellius had told Agrippa about Antony's plans and he even knew about the decision to load the sails. The men who were not on the ships were watching from the shoreline to see how the battle would go. Octavian's soldiers had such a good view of Antony's ships that they could see exactly what he was doing in the strait and may have been able to keep their commanders updated by using small boats or a type of signaling. There was no surprises when the ships emerged from the strait, and deployed in two lines that stretched between the headlands and stopped. Cleopatra's squadron stayed behind the lines, and did not appear as if it were going to take an active role in the battle. Antony moved first and sailed towards the opening of the strait, hoping Agrippa would take the bait and start fighting. This plan failed because Agrippa judiciously refused to move. Thus a very long wait ensued that lasted through the morning. The two fleets, maybe a mile apart rested on their oars.

The first image is a painting done by Lorenzo Castro in 1672 called The Battle of Actium. I am going to try to put a second image here of the Anbracian Gulf with the location of Octavian's camp and Antony's first and second camps marked on it. I hope it comes out clear. I scanned the page directly from Anthony Everitt's Augustus. The information in this particular post is from his book from pages 180 to 183. I will try to go backwards through all of my posts here and put -if I can locate it-exactly what source and page the data is from sometime soon.

This blog kind of had a "near-death experience". This is because I wasn't sure how many people-if any -at times were reading it and it is too much work to do if no one was reading it. I think I have gone 10 or more posts here without a comment. But recently Jon and other great readers have commented on posts here-so that makes it all worth it. I also put the "sitemeter" thing on to see how many-if any -other readers were stopping by. It has only been on here since the 24th of November so it is probably too early to say I have exact data on it yet-but I was pleasantly surprised to see that out of the first 100 visitors 3 of them spent between 8 minutes and an hour with the blog.

To many 3 out of a hundred may not seem like much-especially as the other 97 stopping by were here zero seconds and it was obviously a net search that didn't pan out for them. But 3 out of a hundred is enough for me to keep going with it-especially if great comments come in here and there. At my "main" blog-My Favorite Monsters-8 to 9 people out of 100 spend any kind of time there-averaging 8 and a half minutes per visit. This is by averaging-the 8 and a half minutes comes from averaging a great many visits-and most are 1 to 4 minutes of the ones that stay-but the eight and a half comes in from averaging the ones that stay 25 minutes and more-with the "record" haha being 72 minutes.

Sorry for the "nerdmania" about visit statistics-I don't know why stuff like that interests me-maybe I should have been a bean-counter when I was able to go to school and work! By the way-I don't look or care about seeing the IP addresses and trying to match or guess who the hometowns are of people commenting. I only know the hometown of an Arizona "blogpal" because she mentioned it in a post-much less the out of state and country visits. I do have to give a "shout-out" to whichever reader of My Favorite Monsters and Dev's Questions hails from the town of Gliwece, Poland in the Katowice area of that nation. Thank you for having been at both of these blogs from the start!

Actually I would like to work more on this blog and my writing blog than My Favorite Monsters for awhile. My writing attempts may be beyond help-but I am going to try. A wonderful woman who I consider more like a sister than a friend has helped with this by recently sending me a Christmas gift of a book that should be easy and interesting to use for posts at My Favorite Monsters while I try hard to work on this and the other blog. You know who you are and you are "on my list" along with your son and father should I win my case-thanks again! OK-sorry -sheesh my internal-well hopefully external too "dialogue" about things unrelated to history is almost longer than the post I just did probably. One last thing related to this blog is that either when I am done with the "Cleopatra/Antony" portion-or maybe all the way through Augustus' rule itself-I would like to add other historical topics in between the Roman history-because I want to go through all eleven other "Caesars" and do a bit about the history of the "5 Good Emperors"-and I don't want others to get bored with Rome or me myself get bored with it. I tried to do this already with the "KAL" posts and a few about the Gorbachev era back in August and September. Thanks again for the fantastic comments and peace and be well to anyone stopping by!

War Drums Part Seven

The next step would be for Octavian to move his legions from Brundisium to a place near the Via Egnatia in the north. At that point his forces would need to march south immediately moving as fast as they possibly could to corner Antony and keep him from moving his army out of the confined area of Actium into central Greece, where he would have elbow-room to make trouble and maybe even outmaneuver Octavian.

This was an enormously daring plan to say the least. A single stroke of bad luck-a Meditteranean storm could have laid waste to the whole thing. The plan involved moving a fleet across open seas (we would assume if it wasn't to be detected the ships could not have hugged the coastline) and risking the calamity of a Meditteranean squall. However, the mission was crowned with complete success. History has not left us details of the exact sequence of events, but we do know that Methone fell and Octavian, immediately, without any harrassment from the weather or the enemy forces, transferred the main part of his army across the Adriatic Sea, landing somewhere between the Via Egnatia and Corcyra-maybe at Panormus (modern Palermo in Albania).

The first news of Octavian and Agrippa's daring move to reach the headquarters of Antony and Cleopatra was that the enemy had taken over a small town some miles north of Actium called Toryne, the Greek word for ladle. It was a sign of the general anxiety at their headquarters at Patrae that Cleopatra made a terrible joke to try to obscure the nervousness the news provoked: "What is so terrible about Caesar Octavian having got hold of a ladle?" Once Octavian arrived at Actium he found an excellent spot, a hill that is now known as Mikhalitzi today. It was about five miles north of the channel into the Ambracian Gulf, and at 400 feet in height, it had great views all around of the surrounding areas. Right next to it in the south, there was an area that was flat enough to stage a battle, should that become necessary.

Shortly after his arrival, Octavian put his fleet in open water and offered battle, but the other side, short of men and not performing well, smartly declined to come out of safe harbor. Antony was having trouble recruiting oarsmen and keeping them. According to Plutarch, Antony was so short of men that the captain of his warships were "press-ganging travellers, muledrivers, reapers, and boys not yet of military age from the exhausted provinces of Greece."

Antony and Cleopatra came from Patrae in a few days. He moved his army from Actium to the northern peninsula. This may have been at the last part of April. He built a new camp that faced Octavian's. Antony was now ready and restless for battle. However, now Octavian was no longer so eager to fight. There was a very strong reason for this: the amazing and tireless Agrippa had captured the island of Leucas. This gave Octavian's men a safe harbor right on Antony's doorstep, and would make it terribly difficult for supply ships from Egypt to make it to Actium. This was an awful move for Antony's and Cleopatra's camp. Supplies started to run very low and Antony had to break the stranglehold.

There wasn't anything to be gained by waiting to do this, Octavian would simply become stronger because he had secure logistical support coming from Italy. Antony tried to prevent Octavian's camp from access to water by taking control of the springs in the plain beneath Mikahlitzi. He also sent another force of cavalry on a long journey around the Ambracian Gulf to establish itself above Octavian's camp and with that cut off their access to the Louros. However, once again, Lady Luck favored Octavian. His general Titus Statilius Taurus, launched a sudden counterattack and drove off Antony's men. At this juncture one of the eastern client kings deserted Antony's cause.

With the passage of time the health of Antony's men began to disintegrate. There were hardly any tides produced by the Meditteranean to wash away the garbage generated by a large army and naval fleet occupying such a crowded space. During the hot months of summer a plague of either dysentery or malaria wreaked havoc on Antony's camp. Men died and morale fell severely.

Most likely in early August, Antony led a vigorous attempt to break out by land. At the same time, Sosius commanded his fleet to sail under cover of a thick fog or mist and demolished the small enemy squadron that was blockading the exit from the straits of Actium. Most likely, the plan was for Sosius to join forces with Antony at some convenient point on the coast. Again, however, Lady Luck was on the side of Octavian and his forces. Agrippa, by pure chance, arrived in the area with the rest of his fleet and made Sosius flee back into harbor. Antony then tried another cavalry engagement-maybe by trying to cut off Octavian's water supply again-but was repelled. This led to the defection of King Amyntas of Galatia from Antony's forces with 2,000 cavalry.

The image is of a silver tetradrachm, Greco-Roman, minted in the Eastern Meditteranean c. 36 B.C. It shows both Antony on one side and Cleopatra on the other. I like using images of coinage from this period in history because the coins themselves-in certain cases-tell a huge story of what was going on at the time. I need to get caught up again with having material ready to post. It may be a week before anything is here again, but I doubt it will be that long. I wanted to give an outside time limit just in case. Thanks again to Jon, Cioara, Autumnforest and anyone who is commenting, reading or following this blog! We are coming up on a fascinating time with our story here and I am anxious to get to it and the aftermath.

War Drums Part Six

It is somewhat hard to ascertain what Mark Antony's strategy was when first looking over it. During the two most recent occasions when Greece had been the field of battle, the opposing generals had focused their attention on the north side of the country and the Via Egnatia, the strategically important road to Byzantium and the east. That was where Pompey the Great had based himself in 49 and 48 BC; Brutus and Cassius had marched west along it to be destroyed by Antony and Octavian.

In comparison Antony had no defenses at all north of Corcyra, which was a hundred miles south of the Via Egnatia. Had Octavian wanted to, he could have sailed from Brundisium to Epirus in the hopes of an easy landfall. Some historians have argued that Mark Antony's decision was to cover the route back to Egypt. But it is very improbably that Octavian would have risked his army and fleet on a long jounrey to invade Egypt, assuming that Antony stayed in Greece.

Any invasion of Egypt would have left Italy open to invasion: The one main thing that can be said is that the way Antony had his forces arrayed would protect an escape route to Egypt should that become necessary. A more likely reason for the way Antony's forces were arrayed can be guessed at. The safest and shortest crossing point from Greece to Italy was from the northern parts such as Dyrrachium or Apollonia. By occupying the southern part of Greece, Antony could have been signalling that he had no intention whatsoever of invading the Italian mainland. This would have been important to make known to even his supporters as such a move would have been very unpopular as long as Cleopatra stayed with him.

Antony's plan had almost 100 percent to have been to tempt Octavian to move his army into Greece. Antony and Cleopatra's fleet at Actium could then move to the north and start a general blockade, stopping any reinforcements and provisions from reaching Octavian's men. Then once the trap was sprung, the Roman empire's leading commander would delay engaging his former co-ruler in a set-piece battle. With his supply route from Egypt secure, Antony would have an enormous amount of time before beginning any hostilities, whereas Octavian whom Antony knew was already short of money, would soon be short of food and other supplies. Octavian would be closed in and determined to begin hostilities. Mark Antony must have been thinking that from this point of weakness, Octavian and his army could easily be moved into a weak defensive position and destroyed.

On 1 January 31 BC, Octavian now 32 years old, had a constitutional role again as he began his third consulship. His colleague, Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus, was a former republican, who had been put in the place of the excluded Mark Antony. The consuls, along with 700 senators and a large number of equites marched off towards Brundisium. Octavian had 80,ooo soldiers compared to Antony's 100,000. The difference was mostly made up by the number of Antony's auxiliary or light-armed troops. Octavian's legions were more experienced than Antony's mostly eastern recruits, having been blooded in the recent Illyrian campaign.

Octavian had made it very well known that he expected the senior men in Roman politics to accompany his army. Pollio, a strong-willed man who was almost retired from politics boldly refused, saying to Octavian, "My services to Antony are too great and his kindnesses to me too well known. So I will steer clear of your quarrel and will be a prize for whoever wins." Maecenas, Octavian's other friend from childhood, and whose abilities in any kind of conflict would have been questionable, stayed behind to watch over the political situation in Rome for his friend.

Humiliating and bitter experience had taught Octavian to respect his own constraints as a commander-and he turned once again to his other childhood friend-the indispensable Agrippa to take direct charge of the fleet, and of the battle plan as a whole. When they found out where and how Antony's forces were allayed, the two men agreed on a plan that used surprise and speed to turn the tables on Antony to trap him.

If at all possible, even before winter's end, early March, Agrippa would sail south more than 500 miles to the Peloponnese, the southern half of Greece. Agrippa's objective would be to lay siege and capture the heavily guarded fort of Methone. From this base he would then try to pick off Antony's other garrisons along the Greek coast.

Two positive outcomes for Octavian from this surprise attack were projected: 1) The supply line to Egypt would be severed and Antony's men would soon be short of food. The time pressure would be completely reversed from what Antony imagined. 2) Mark Antony would have to send warships to fight Agrippa and in doing this would weaken his naval garrisons.

I have more information written down that just needs to be typed out so I hope to post again to this blog soon-hopefully within a day or two. Thanks again to anyone commenting or following this blog! The image is just of a Roman mosaic of a fish-no direct relation to the post itself. When I do get further along in the Battle of Actium I would like to have images of maps and things with a direct bearing on the information in the article itself.

War Drums Part Five

Octavian read through the document in private and made note of the parts least favorable to Antony. Then he read these out loud to the Senate. Octavian pointed out Antony's wish to be buried in Alexandria. Octavian's former fellow triumvir and former brother-in-law also left legacies to his children by Cleopatra and reasserted that Caesarion was Julius Caesar's child. Octavian's blatant interference with the sacred Vestal Virgins had a splitting effect. Many senators thought that his taking of Antony's will was "extraordinary and intolerable." However, to some the desired effect was created. The will seemed to this group of senators that the great Roman general had been subverted into becoming an easterner. Indeed, the mud stuck and even Antony's supporters in the Senate voted to deprive him of the consulship that had been planned for him the following year.

Now Octavian felt he was in a strong enough position to formally declare war. Another unique situation occurred after all of this maneuvering against Antony because the enemy had to be Cleopatra. There were two main reasons for this: Octavian didn't want to be accused of re-igniting a civil war that he claimed to have ended. Also, Octavian didn't want to make official enemies of Antony's Roman supporters, because some of them might want to switch sides in the future as Plancus had done.

A ceremony was conducted at the Temple of Bellona, goddess of war in the Campus Martius. After this ritual was complete Rome was officially at war with Egypt.

The promontory of Actium on the coast of western Greece, and the inland Ambracian Gulf it guards are almost unchanged by the passage of 2,000 years. The low, tongue of land which lies only a few feet above sea level stretches northward toward a larger and more elevated two-fingered peninsula. Between them, a half-mile wide strait shoulders its way from the open sea into the gulf, 25 miles wide and between 4 and 10 miles long. These days Actium is very busy in the summer. Tourists alight at the small airport and crowd the sea with yachts. Actium has three marinas; one of these is named the Cleopatra Marina.

This marina sits on a position on the strait from which if one had a time-travelling machine, one would be able to watch the powerful and seductive queen of Egypt in her magnificent galley sail by into her grim destiny and into history. Actium was a quieter place in the first century BC. It was a center for pearl fishing and a small village on the headland made a good jumping off location for travellers. Close by, on the shore where the strait was the slimmest there stood an old temple and a grove of trees sacred to Apollo, founded 500 years before.

Towards the end of 32 BC, the main part of Antony's fleet was based in the safety of the Ambracian Gulf. Where the strait narrowed to its smallest width as it led to the open sea, two towers were constructed (probably where the modern Venetian towers stand), from these catapults would lob missiles and fireballs at any passing galleys. The ships of Antony's fleet had been very busy during the summer and autumn transporting his army to Greece and then establishing a defensive line down its Adriatic Coast. A Squadron guarded Leucas, the Actium roads, and the islands in the south. It also protected the entry into the Corinthian Gulf and the port of Patrae (modern Patras, Greece), where Antony and Cleopatra had established their headquarters. A garrison guarded the Methone promontory. Yet another was placed on the headland at Taenarum. Added to these, Antony had troops on Crete and four legions policed the province of Cyrenaica slightly to the west ot Egypt. In the winter of 32-31 BC, Antony's army was spread out among these strongpoints on the western coast from Corcyra to Methone, with the largest portion gathered at Actium.

I hope to post to this blog again very soon. The images I had picked out for this post got kind of messed up. The bottom image is simply a map of modern Greece-it was supposed to show where Patras was located. The top image is a diagram of how the Battle of Actium was arrayed -but I don't think when I publish this the names will be readable due to size-the purple colors are Antony and Cleopatra's forces and the red is Octavian and Agrippa's forces. I will try to find some better maps for future posts. The middle image is simply of a Roman pinky ring. I have more information written -it just needs to be typed out. All the best to anyone stopping by!

War Drums Part Four

The west must be left open for Mark Antony to make a move against Italy so he would receive the black eye for beginning the war. During this game of cat and mouse, Octavian had to not only maintain but enlarge his army and naval fleet. There was no getting around raising taxes. An unprecedentedly harsh income tax was levied (25 percent to an individual's annual earnings) with the result that riots immediately broke out. Octavian might have felt as if he had stepped backwards in time to ten years earlier when he was the unpopular man who confronted the crowds when the Triumvirate had been forced to raise taxes for the wars against Brutus and Cassius.

Once again Octavian showed a knack for making surprise moves when the stakes were high. Some time during 32 BC he held a sort of personal referendum in which people were required to swear their loyalty to him. Later he wrote boasting: "The whole of Italy [and the western provinces] voluntarily took an oath of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader in the forthcoming war." Octavian claimed that half a million citizens bound themselves to him. Even though we don't have to accept this dubiously round number to still concede the plebiscite was a surprising success.

It had been less than 50 years since the War of the Allies, when the peoples of Italy had rose up against Rome to claim their rights and were granted full citizenship. Octavian was a provincial as were many others in his regime. After centuries of being bossed around by Rome, they were enjoying the new era and definitely did not want to see Antony and Cleopatra overturn it. The rage over the new taxes was dying down. In its place a new patriotism emerged in the Italian consciousness.

Then things were once again to turn in favor of Octavian. Lucius Munatius Plancus had defected to Mark Antony after the Battle of Mutina in 43 BC, and became one of his closest advisers. However, in the summer of 32 BC, he seems to have taken stock of the situation and left Athens quietly, where Antony and Cleopatra were spending some time before hostilities commenced. Plancus made his way as quietly as possible to Italy. We can wonder what precipitated this move?

In May or June of that year Antony had at last divorced Octavia. He told her to leave his house in Rome. Once again there is actual historical evidence to back up what was being said by people at the time about Octavia being an affectionate and maternal woman. Because when she left the family home she took all of Antony's children with her, except for his eldest son by Fulvia, the teenaged Antyllus. Antyllus left Rome to join his father in Greece, where he gave Antony the uncomfortable news that Octavia had looked after the growing boy with great kindness. The divorce of Octavia by Antony had very serious consequences for him in the court of public opinion.

It had more to do with the fact that he had behaved boorishly to a loving wife but even more so that he had scorned a Roman woman in favor of a foreign queen. However, all this business with Antony, Octavia and Cleopatra was not enough in and of itself to force Plancus' hand. It would seem that Plancus noted the extremely corrosive effect Cleopatra's presence in the campaign and Mark Antony's supporters. Plancus could have figured out easily the effect of a foreign queen helping to lead an invasion of Italy would be!

Once he got to Rome, Plancus presented himself to Octavian and told him that he knew most of Antony's secrets. Antony kept a document with the Vestal Virgins that was too good not to expose. Octavian sent a message to the Vestal Virgins to give him Antony's document. They refused and said if he wanted it he would have to get it himself. This, Octavian was more than willing to do.

I hope to post at least one more article to this blog today. The post/article sizes may vary a bit as lately, my neuropathy/back pain is giving me more trouble than normal and I need to stand up and down more to keep it from going completely out-so many times it is easier to just post an article than to keep saving it to drafts-even though I do normally like my posts to be at least a certain length before publishing.

War Drums Part Three

A tribune who supported Octavian vetoed the censure, but Sosius' move had flushed Octavian out. In mid-February he gathered his supporters and Caesarian veterans around him and returned to Rome as their leader. This move by Octavian was his own Rubicon-emulating his adoptive father Julius Caesar's move so many years before. Octavian convened a meeting of the Senate, a move he had no right to make, but the consuls and the senators arrived. Dio tells us that he surrounded "himself with a bodyguard of soldiers and friends who carried concealed daggers. Sittiing between the consuls in his chair of state, he spoke at length and his moderate terms in his own defense, and brought many accusations against Sosius and Antony."

The consuls did not intend to allow this use of force by Octavian to stand. According to Dio: "As they did not dare to reply to [Octavian] and could not bear to be silent," they left Rome in secret and set sail for the east. They were accompanied by three to four hundred of Rome's one thousand senators-republicans or supporters of Antony. It is hard to say, looking back, if this move was a defeat or a victory for Octavian. The consuls could claim legitimate political authority, unlike Octavian, and although the senators who joined them were a minority of the total membership-they were still a quite substantial number of the ruling class. Octavian also had to wonder how many of those senators who stayed behind were completely behind him for the long haul.

There is a definite comparison to be made between the events of this time and the flight from Rome in 49 BC of Pompey the Great and most of the Senate when Julius Caesar invaded Italy and began the first of the civil wars. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Sosius could make the point that they were taking "Rome" with them. Octavian appears to have been taken aback id not stunned by this turn of events. He had to find a way to limit the political damage from this sharp rebuff. He pretended that this is what he had counted on and claimed that he had sent the senators away voluntarily.

Now that another civil war was a 100 percent certainty minds were being focused with great precision. All throughout the Roman empire, men of any significance had to make a decision with possibly fatal consequences: which man, Octavian or Mark Antony were they to support? For the first time since Alexander the Great one man controlled the entire seapower of the east. This man was Mark Antony and he was close to ending his preparations for war with Octavian. He also commanded an army of thirty legions with 12,000 light armed infantry and 12,000 cavalry.

Most of these soldiers were from the east as Octavian had prevented Antony from recruiting in Italy. These men were not necessarily inferior to Roman legionaires, but in a crisis they might not stay loyal. By early 32 BC it had become obvious that Antony and Cleopatra had come to a very important decision. Cleopatra was going to play a full part in Antony's campaign. This had the effect of further enraging Roman opinion against her. The queen was already very unpopular among Romans because of Octavians propaganda. It was a further blemish against both her and Mark Antony to see the foreign queen acting as a co-leader of a Roman army which is exactly what she would be in effect.

When Ajenobarbus and others of Antony's supporters arrived from Rome they were highly unsettled by this turn of events. Ahenobarbus strongly advised Mark Antony in no uncertain terms to send the queen packing back to Egypt. Herod the Great of Judea, who despised Cleopatra after many years of being pushed around by her, have Antony some advice in confidence: Cleopatra's prescence among Antony's forces would greatly damage his chances for success. Herod told Antony that to realize victory, he should have Cleopatra executed and annex Egypt!

There was indeed a time when Antony sent Cleopatra back home, but in the end caved in and let her stay. In April of 31 BC, the vast military machine set off on its slow journey to Greece where his forces would make their base of operations. Miliatarily it would have been in Octavian's interest to meet Antony's forces head on in Greece, but it wasn't in his political interest to do so. This was because he in no way wanted to be seen as the instigator of the coming war, when of course the naked truth was that he was the aggressor, and the invader if his one time co-ruler's territory.

Insomnia does have its uses-back pain too! I am actually getting a little bit caught up on this blog, but of course there is a long way to go. I do not know if I will be online tomorrow at this point because it looks like a miserable night is on the way, but if I am I will have more to post. All the best to anyone stopping by! And thanks so very much to anyone who has commented or followed this blog. I will try to not get so behind again. The image is of ancient Roman ruins in Aphamia, Syria.

War Drums Part Two

Then Antony summoned Cleopatra, who joined him en route, bringing with her a very rich war chest of twenty thousand talents (about 480 million sesterces), and the two arrived at the port of Ephesus (near the modern town of Selcuk in southern Turkey) and made it their headquarters. The Triumvirate officially ended at the close of December 33 BC. Octavian, now had to maintain his new public image as a strict observer of the constitution and upholder of the "old" values that had made Rome so great. Octavian had no governmental position of any kind now, and it was exceedingly risky to be disarmed this way-now of all times.

In his favor was the fact that after more than ten years at the head of affairs he had built up a powerful auctoritas and political base. He had proven record of success, and was the overlord of a huge clientela-thousands of people had obligations to him. Maybe the most important fact was that the legions of the west remained under his command. Maintaining an outwardly defensive posture, he withdrew from Rome to await events.

Two new consuls took office in January 32 BC. During the period that the triumvirs had ruled, consuls had been named for years ahead. They were chosen from a roughly equal lot of supporters of the two triumvirs. As luck would have it, however, the two named for this year were both supporters of Mark Antony. The senior consul was Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (the cognomen means "Bronze Beard"), the noble who had proven himself a good admiral for Brutus and Cassius. His colleague was also an able man named Gaius Sosius, a new man. Typically for this timeframe he was a provincial. Both men had an important mission to carry out for Antony.

Previous to their taking office, they had been sent a letter they were to read to the Senate upon taking office. Antony had probably sought to state his state his own case forcefully; he probably restated his eastern settlement, his various acta, and in particular his Armenian victory. However, the consuls made a strange decision about reading the letter.

Dio writes: "Domitius and Sosius...being extremely devoted to [Antony], refused to publish [the letter] to all the people, even though Caesar urged it on them."

What this means, in all probability is that the consuls' viewed the letters import on public or senatorial, opinion as the opposite of what Antony had intended. The problem with the letter could have been a prideful reasoning behind the Donations of Alexandria. Antony wasn't aware of Octavian's propaganda against Cleopatra-or the fact that it had been so successful. If this were the case, any reference to the Donations by Antony that weren't somehow apologetic would have added more fuel to the flames. Gaius Sosius went on the offensive on 1 February. He strongly advocated for Mark Antony and proposed a measure of censure of Octavian. Sosius' message had been that if there was a threat to peace it hadn't come from Antony who had shown no sign of aggression toward Octavian.

I hope to be back very soon with more. This is going to start getting very interesting for awhile for anyone interested in this. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!